EMPLOYING LONGITUDINAL AND SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSES TO EXAMINE HOW INTERACTING SMALL GROUP NORMS INFLUENCE COLLEGE STUDENT ALCOHOL USE

项目摘要/摘要 大学生酗酒是一个全国性的公共卫生问题，仍然是NIAAA的首要任务。 为了促进预防和干预工作，了解心理社会病因学是至关重要的。 支持大学生饮酒。有强有力的证据表明，社会规范(即对同龄人的看法) 与酒精有关的态度和行为)是学生饮酒的最有力的预测因素之一。这 规范的影响在学生所属的较小的近邻同龄人群体中可能特别强， 例如学生俱乐部和组织。鉴于几项大型全国性调查显示，超过70%的人 美国大学生加入一个正式的俱乐部或组织，这些团体代表着一个很有希望的平台 预防和干预，但目前对它们的研究不足。这项研究的中心目标是更好地 了解学生遵守或遵守其学生俱乐部的集体饮酒规范。具体来说， 本项目试图回答三个问题：目标1)哪些学生更容易受到规范群体的影响 影响力，以及哪些团体促进成员之间更多地遵守规范？目标2)纵向是多少 感知到的群体饮酒规范与成员饮酒之间的关联方向？和目标3)做 当群体成员遵守饮酒规范时，他们会获得社会期望的结果(例如，受欢迎程度) 他们的团体？为了解决这些新颖的研究问题，申请者将收集纵向数据(3波； N=350)，使用社交网络设计，来自25个大学俱乐部运动队。申请者将雇用社会团体 网络分析(SNA)，以获取群体结构的客观社会计量指数(即密度) 并识别每个成员在各自组的状态层次结构中的位置(即，中心性)，以测试 这些网络指数放大或抑制了感知的集体饮酒规范与学生之间的联系 饮酒(目标1)。将使用纵向结构方程模型来识别感知的群体 饮酒规范预测饮酒(从众)，饮酒预测对群体饮酒规范的看法 (投射)，或者这种联系在时间上是相互的(目标2)。最后，申请人将计算一个经验性的 对集体饮酒规范和酒精使用(即遵守规范)之间的对应关系的派生衡量，由 利用多层负二项式提取多层模型生成的特定人的斜率 回归检验随着时间推移遵守规范是否会预测群体中的社会接受度和地位 (目标3)。通过揭示小群体中规范性影响的本质，这个项目的发现代表了 社会规范研究的范式转变，非常适合产生关于如何重新设计酒精的见解 针对小群体可改变的方面的预防战略。在专家导师团队的指导下(布莱尔博士 埃文斯、罗布·图里西、南希·巴尼特、杰森·基尔默和贝瑟尼·布雷)，这笔奖学金将提供必要的 理论、方法和专业培训，以帮助申请者发展成为独立的 研究科学家。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Alcohol misuse among college students is a national public health concern and remains a top priority for NIAAA. To facilitate prevention and intervention efforts, it is critical to gain understanding of the psychosocial etiology underpinning college student alcohol use. There is strong evidence that social norms (i.e., perceptions of peers’ alcohol-related attitudes and behaviors) are among the most robust predictors of students’ alcohol use. This normative influence may be particularly strong within the small proximal peer groups that students belong to, such as student clubs and organizations. Given that several large national surveys have indicated that over 70% of American college students join a formal club or organization, these groups represent a promising platform for prevention and intervention, but they are currently understudied. The central objective of this research is to better understand students’ adherence, or conformity, to the group drinking norms of their student clubs. Specifically, this project seeks to answer three questions: Aim 1) Which students are more susceptible to normative group influence, and which groups promote greater norm adherence among members? Aim 2) What is the longitudinal direction of the association between perceived group drinking norms and members’ alcohol use? and Aim 3) Do group members obtain socially desirable outcomes (e.g., popularity) when they adhere to the drinking norms of their group? To address these novel research questions, the applicant will collect longitudinal data (3 waves; N=350), using a social network design, from 25 collegiate club sport teams. The applicant will employ social network analysis (SNA) to capture objective, sociometrically derived indices of group structures (i.e., density) and identify where each member sits within respective groups’ status hierarchy (i.e., centrality), to test whether these network indices amplify or depress the association between perceived group drinking norms and student alcohol use (Aim 1). Longitudinal structural equation modeling will be used to identify whether perceived group drinking norms predict alcohol use (conformity), alcohol use predicts perceptions of group drinking norms (projection), or this association is temporally reciprocal (Aim 2). Finally, the applicant will compute an empirically derived measure of correspondence between group drinking norms and alcohol use (i.e., norm-adherence) by extracting person-specific slopes generated from multilevel models and using multilevel negative binomial regression to test whether norm adherence across time predicts social acceptance and status within the group (Aim 3). By uncovering the nature of normative influence in small groups, the findings from this project represent a paradigm shift in social norms research and are well-suited to generate insights about how to redesign alcohol prevention strategies to target modifiable aspects of small groups. Under a team of expert mentors (Drs. Blair Evans, Rob Turrisi, Nancy Barnett, Jason Kilmer, and Bethany Bray), this fellowship will provide necessary theoretical, methodological, and professional training to aid the applicant’s development into an independent research scientist.